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Bradley Manning's Wikileaks Release Aided al Qaeda, Says Army

Bradley Manning aided al Qaeda by sharing classified government documents with Wikileaks, the U.S. Army argued Thursday.

Manning was arrested last May on 22 charges, including "aiding the enemy," for allegedly giving military secrets to the information-sharing website Wikileaks. But which enemy Manning may have aided wasn't clear until a military court hearing at Fort Meade, Md. was held Thursday morning.

According Judge Col. Denise Lind, who oversaw the hearing, the U.S. government believes Manning's actions indirectly aided al Qaeda terrorists operating on the Arabian Peninsula.

The most serious charge that Manning faces is the crime "aiding the enemy." Convicted soldiers can face the death penalty for that crime, however the Army has said it would only seek a life sentence if Manning is found guilty. Some of Manning's other charges include disclosing classified information to a person not authorized to receive it, wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the Internet knowing that it is accessible to the enemy and violating Army computer use rules.

Manning's defense has argued that the a 24-year old Oklahoma native was "troubled" and shouldn't have been given access to sensitive material. It also holds that the leak did little or no harm to national security.

After his arrest, Manning was first held at the Marine Corps Brig in Quantico, Va., often in solitary confinement. Due to a public outcry about his treatment while imprisoned, he was moved to a medium-security facility at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. Earlier this week, the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on torture called Manning's treatment leading up to his trial "a violation of his right to physical and psychological integrity as well as of his presumption of innocence."

The 490,000 military reports about Iraq and Afghanistan given to Wikileaks became the Iraq and Afghanistan War Logs, lengthy reports of the U.S. military's actions in those countries. Wikileaks worked with major media outlets throughout the world, including The New York Times and The Guardian, which redacted sensitive information before publishing the reports. However, unedited versions of some of the reports were later leaked on the Internet, containing the identities of informants and other sensitive information.

Another 250,000 leaked U.S. diplomatic cables gave the world an unfiltered look at how American ambassadors and State Department officials viewed other nations and global leaders. Manning is also suspected of leaking the helicopter footage which Wikileaks turned into the now-infamous "Collateral Murder" video.

Meanwhile, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is still fighting extradition from the UK to Sweden, where authorities want him to answer to charges of sexual crimes.

Is Bradley Manning a hero or a villan? What about Julian Assange, the co-founder of Wikileaks? Sound off in the comments below.

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